A Word in Season: Weighing the Hearts (Proverbs 21:2)

Think back, if you will, over the last few minutes, hours, days, weeks, about the decisions that you have made and the actions that you have taken.

I presume that you've done things for what you believe are good and proper reasons.

I'm sure that, if you've even stopped to think about it, your working assumption is that the decisions that you've made have been, generally speaking, wise and good ones, that where you've just acted almost instinctively, you've naturally acted in accordance with good common sense and perhaps sanctified and enlightened understanding, that where you've thought about things, that you've chewed things over carefully, you've sought wisdom, perhaps you've looked for counsel, and naturally, of course, you've come up with a wise decision and you've carried out a proper action.

But Proverbs 21 and verse 2 reminds us that every way of a man is right in his own eyes.

Our working assumption tends to be that we are getting things right. When we perhaps have a discussion with somebody else, typically the point of contact will be that issue where there's perhaps a difference of opinion.

We often go in trying to persuade somebody of the way that we see things. If we have a measure of responsibility, we expect other people to fall in with us because naturally, of course, we're getting it right.

We're seeing it the way it is and we're doing the right things. And yet the same scripture tells us that the

Lord weighs the hearts, the heart of man, the core of our being.

It's the place where our thinking and our feeling and our willing occurs, where we are assessing, where we're pondering, where our principles and our motives are turning over.

It's the place where our affections become engaged, where our hearts begin to go out towards particular things.

And it's the place where our willing then begins to also take place, where we set our hearts upon things, where we determine to carry out particular actions, where that decision making process occurs and where we then begin, if you like, to engage the wheels of the rest of our humanity.

And the wise man of the Proverbs tells us that in that inner sphere, that's where God truly penetrates.

That's where the Lord's eye searches. That's where his analysis, his assessment, his righteous and holy scrutiny takes place.

You see, we can sadly persuade ourselves that almost anything is right.

We're experts in painting our motives, our attitudes, our appetites, our actions as virtuous.

Even as Christians, we can fall into the trap of just assuming that we're seeing it clearly, we're feeling it purely and we're doing it rightly.

But the Lord is looking far deeper. The Lord knows what's taking place in the very depths of our souls.

And he is the perfect judge. His wisdom is the perfect standard.

And we would be wise to be a little slower to assume that we're always getting everything right.

Now, I'm by no means saying that we don't spend time developing convictions. I'm not saying that we shouldn't work those convictions out in practice.

In fact, if we're going to be wise, that's precisely what we need to be doing. Wrestling the word of God into our consciousness and our consciences and then working out how we are to apply that in every aspect of everyday living.

But I think it's worth stepping back from the working assumption that we're just getting it all correct, because every way is right in our own eyes.

We're very slow to see anything more than we can see. We are by definition unable to see our own blind spots.

And that perhaps is why the psalmist cried out to God that the Lord would search him and know his heart, that the

Lord would look into the depths of his being and would lead him in the way everlasting.

There is wisdom to be had. We can learn to think clearly, to feel purely, to will rightly and then to act in a way that pleases

God. But that comes largely by self -scrutiny and by bringing ourselves and subjecting ourselves to the word of God and his wisdom.

So let's not be hampered by this, but rather be trained in this way, not just to assume that we are right, but to go to the

Lord who weighs the hearts and to ask him for his instruction and his direction, that it might not only look right to us, but be right in truth.